


the past is never far

by sabrinachill



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Half Max/Liz and half Michael/Alex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-19 15:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17603591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrinachill/pseuds/sabrinachill
Summary: Michael figures out how to get back to their home planet, but it’s a limited time option — leaving them only twenty-four hours to decide where they truly belong.***Michael furiously scribbles out the final calculations, his free hand raking through hair he hasn’t stopped to wash in days. A cup of coffee sits at his elbow, so long forgotten that mold has begun to grow across the dregs.He’s so close. An entire lifetime devoted to understanding the technology powering the bits of the wreckage they were able to salvage, to tracking the movements of stars and deciphering the symbols embossed on the iridescent fragments, and it’s all finally coming together.He scratches out a few more numbers, checks over them with a trembling pencil, and then pushes back from the small table in his trailer that he’s been using as a desk.That’s it. He’s done.He can go home.…Now he just has to decide if he really wants to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Goo Goo Dolls’ “Name."

Michael furiously scribbles out the final calculations, his free hand raking through hair he hasn’t stopped to wash in days. A cup of coffee sits at his elbow, so long forgotten that mold has begun to grow across the dregs.

He’s so close. An entire lifetime devoted to understanding the technology powering the bits of the wreckage they were able to salvage, to tracking the movements of stars and deciphering the symbols embossed on the iridescent fragments, and it’s all finally coming together.

He scratches out a few more numbers, checks over them with a trembling pencil, and then pushes back from the small table in his trailer that he’s been using as a desk. 

That’s it. He’s done.

He can go home.

…Now he just has to decide if he really _wants_ to.

“Fuck,” he whispers, scrubbing a hand over his face, scraping along a week-old beard grown through neglect more than intention. “ _Fuck_.”

* * *

Max is just settling in at the counter at Crashdown after a long night on duty, his large hands wrapped around a steaming mug in the hopes that it will help chase the chill from his bones, when his phone rings.

He sighs, his heavy eyelids falling shut for a moment as he fishes it from his pocket. 

Michael. 

Max rubs a thumb across his bottom lip, debating whether to answer. Now that he’s left the ranch, his brother never rises before the sun. So the fact that he’s calling at this hour means that he’s been up all night — most likely drinking — and Max has never particularly enjoyed any conversation they’ve had while Michael was loaded. 

Still, he feels compelled to pick up. Michael probably needs help, and there’s always the small chance that, someday, he might actually let _Max_ be the one to give it _._

“Hey,” Max says, pressing the phone against his ear, wishing his tired voice wasn’t so rough. The lack of sleep makes him sound like he’s been gargling gravel.

Michael, however, sounds like live electricity snapping down the line. “I did it. I figured it out.” 

That’s all he says; it’s all he needs to say. Max is suddenly wide awake. 

“I’ll get Iz. We’ll be right there.”

* * *

Max refrains from turning on his cruiser’s siren, but only because there’s not much traffic on the dusty Roswell streets this morning. Isobel hasn’t said a word since she climbed into the passenger’s seat, but it’s not hard to know what she’s thinking.

She’s trying to figure out how to let Michael down. Again.

And Max understands. He’s long wondered what he would do when this day finally came; now that it’s here, he still doesn’t have an answer. How can he leave everything he’s ever known? But then, how can he not go home now that he finally, _finally_ can?

He pulls through the junkyard gate and up to Michael’s shiny Airstream, then cuts the engine. In the abrupt silence that follows, his hands are clenched so tightly that the knuckles are bleached bone white.

And Isobel, never afraid to charge headlong into delicate situations, climbs out long before he’s ready, her heels sinking into the sand as she walks to Michael’s door.

Max has no choice but to take a deep breath and follow.

* * *

Michael has been trying to explain his conclusions to them for forty-seven minutes, rambling and pacing the short length of the trailer like a caged animal, back and forth, back and forth. There’s a broken pencil tucked over his right ear and his left hand is tugging at the stretched-out neckline of his v-neck tee; he’s frowning and twitchy, blinking a little too much.

“Okay, so go over that again,” Max says, his palms upturned in his lap, his voice the same slow and even cadence he uses when facing armed suspects or delusional addicts. “Slower, this time, please.”

“And use fewer words,” Isobel chimes in.

Michael stops pacing and stares at them, their bewildered expressions finally registering.

“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath and willing himself to calm, his hands dropping back down to his sides. 

He hasn’t slept in more than 24 hours and is running on an unholy combination of coffee, Red Bull, and nail polish remover; now that he’s stopped moving, he realizes that if he doesn’t sit down soon his legs will fall out from under him. 

So he boosts himself up onto the tiny kitchenette counter and leans forward, his forearms braced on his thighs. 

“Okay,” Michael says again, quieter and slower. "It’s actually really simple — I just realized that I’ve been thinking about it wrong all these years. I don’t need to master the mechanics of interstellar travel in order to get back to our planet, because o _ur people already did that_.”

Max nods. “So what does that mean?”

“It means that they figured out how to manipulate spacetime.” 

In answer, he’s met with two utterly blank stares.

“Um…hmm.” He makes a sound halfway between a hum and a groan, frustrated as he tries to find a way to explain this so they can understand. “Okay, so you guys have seen _Star Trek_ , right? Remember wormholes? Well, they’re not just science fiction; they have a basis in theoretical physics, and whoever we came from, they _created_ one. Right on the Foster Ranch. And all we have to do is open it back up.”

“A wormhole,” Max repeats, shifting slightly on the cramped seat, his boot scraping against the scuffed linoleum floor. 

“Yup,” Michael says, popping the ‘P’ sound. 

“Where does this wormhole go?”

Michael points straight up. “Back to where we came from.”

“And where is that, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Michael answers, shrugging helplessly.

Max swallows. “Can we ever come back here?”

Michael smiles, but there’s absolutely no humor in it. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

Max bites his bottom lip and gazes out the window at the junkyard. Sunlight bounces off shiny bits of twisted metal, piles of wreckage all around. 

Michael never bothers to look out at it anymore; he’s been staring at the jagged remains of a crash his whole life.

Isobel’s focus is the sharpened tip of a knife, and it’s pointed straight at Michael. “You know how to do this? To reopen this wormhole, or whatever?”

“It’s all right here,” Michael says, holding up a glowing shard of the wreckage. “I finally decoded it and then stayed up all night doing the calculations, and, yeah, I can do this. _We_ can do this... but there’s a catch.”

And there it is, the spark of relief lighting up Max and Isobel’s faces, its flash too powerful to hide. They try to smother over it a fraction of a second later, wanting to protect his feelings, but it’s not necessary. Michael understands. 

He knows that they think the catch is going to be their way out. That it’s some insurmountable obstacle whose existence is going to make this impossible choice for them, that will keep them here on Earth without any of them having to consciously decide to do so. 

But they’re wrong. They’re not getting an escape clause.

They’re getting a ticking clock. 

“We need access to the crash site,” Michael says. “The original wormhole opened up there, so that’s where we would have to reopen it.”

“But the crash site is on Foster Ranch,” Max says. 

“Yeah,” Michael says. “That’s the catch. We can go back, but we have to do it _soon —_ today, or tomorrow at the latest. The government owns that place now, and if we wait much longer they’ll have it behind so many layers of security we’ll never have access again.” 

They have one day. A single day to decide the course of the rest of their lives.

Silence falls inside the trailer. No one speaks; no one _moves_. 

The sun beats down on the trailer’s roof, quickly warming the still air. A bead of sweat rolls down Michael’s spine; dust motes dance in a ray of clear light.

“Michael, this is crazy,” Isobel finally says, not unkindly. “I can’t just decide to leave everything I’ve ever known. I have a husband, and a job; I have a _life_ here.” 

“I know, Iz,” Michael mutters. “And I don’t know what _any_ of us should do about this. After all this time, I’m not even sure if _I_ want to go.” 

He surprises himself a little even as he says it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. And he knows exactly why he’s grown so uncharacteristically attached to this planet…but that’s not something he’s willing to share just yet. 

There’s someone else he has to tell first.

“I just…” Michael shakes his head a little, and sighs. “I figured I owed it to all of us to figure this out. To finally have the _choice_ of where we should be.”

Isobel stands, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt. “I don’t need the choice. I’m not going. That place may be where I came from, but it’s not where I belong.” She rests a hand on Michael’s shoulder, her expression softening. “And I don’t think you belong there, either.”

“Well, okay then,” Michael says, “I guess that’s one vote for ‘no’. Max?”

Max has been quiet for a long time, studying his knuckles as if some ancient wisdom is to be found hidden in the creases of his skin. “If we went back… we wouldn’t have to hide anymore. We wouldn’t have to be afraid of who we are — or what we can do.”

“Max, you can’t seriously—“

“Let him talk, Iz,” Michael interrupts.

And Isobel freezes, stunned. She’s _never_ heard Michael speak up in defense of Max, and that small action seems to be what finally breaks through the last of her defenses.

She looks between her brothers, suddenly terribly alarmed, as if she’s just now realizing that one of them might actually _leave._ She’d known that Michael was working on finding a way back to their home planet, but she’d never truly considered it before. 

The possibility that she might lose one of them — or both — had been too horrific to imagine. 

“Give me 24 hours,” Max finally says, looking up at Michael with resignation. “Give us _all_ 24 hours. There’s a lot to consider, and we need time to think it over. I need… there are people we should talk to, first.” 

He rubs at the back of his neck; he looks heavier than he did just an hour ago. 

They all do.

“Fine,” Michael says. “We’ll meet back here at dawn tomorrow with our decisions.”


	2. Chapter 2

Max drops Isobel at home, which is exactly where he should be going.

Home. 

He was on duty all night and he’s strung out on exhaustion, but if he’s faced with the choice of staying on Earth forever — and always being strange and separate, always hiding, always a little afraid — or facing the unknown of his mysterious origins, then there’s really only one person he needs to talk to. 

So he slumps over the counter at Crashdown, parked on the same stool he’d occupied when Michael called this morning. Only a couple of hours have passed; it feels like an different life entirely.

There’s about a dozen other customers scattered around the diner and Sheryl Crow is singing from the jukebox; the air smells like bacon and coffee and all of Max’s teenage dreams. 

Liz is dancing in the kitchen with her dad and laughing as she spins past the small passthrough window, her hair fanning out behind her, shining even under the harsh florescent light. 

Her eyeliner is smudged and her lipstick has worn off; she’s flushed and sweating and there’s a large mustard stain on the left sleeve of her dress. 

Max is certain that she’s never been more beautiful. 

His heart seizes and clenches, squeezing so tight that it physically aches. 

Because the truth is that, for him, she’s _it_. The beginning and the end, the only thing on this planet that has ever really, truly mattered. If he has ever felt alive, or normal, or a part of humanity at all, it has been when he was with her. 

And for that one fleeting moment when she’d first come back to town, he’d thought he was really going to get to have it. To have a life with her, to be a _them_. 

But something had broken.

She’d learned of Rosa’s murder, and she’d accused _him_. 

In theory, they’ve moved past it — she knows the truth now, all of it — but the confrontation had been sharp enough to cut them both, leaving wounds that haven’t yet fully healed. 

Max worries that maybe they never will, not completely; that maybe he and Liz have lost whatever they were on the precipice of, strayed too far from the edge to ever find their way back. 

And his once vibrant hope has begun to fade, drying into a flat, papery husk. 

Still, they’re undeniably drawn to one another; magnets can’t fight their nature. So she saunters out to the counter as soon as she sees him, coffee pot in hand. 

“Hey, Max.”

“Hey,” he answers, trying and utterly failing to not look like his entire world is teetering on the brink of... something. A revolution, a free-fall into an endless abyss, a quake so powerful it shakes everything into a billion tiny pieces.

Behind him, the jukebox skips and flickers before going staticky, the sound and light as warped as his heart. Liz cuts her eyes to it and the color drains from her cheeks, the pallor at odds with the cheery powder blue uniform and glittery antennae bouncing around above her head.

She keeps her voice quiet, but Max can hear the thread of worry running through it. “What’s going on?” 

“I...” Max trails off, looking down at his hands. He has spent his entire life wishing they were nothing more than normal human hands with normal human abilities; now he’s just so goddamn grateful that they’re _not_. Because normal hands wouldn’t have been able to resurrect the girl standing before him — and he can’t imagine a life without her in it.

The truth is that that he’d saved them _both_ that night. 

“I’d like to talk to you,” he finally manages. “But not... not here.”

Liz rolls her lips together and studies his face. Whatever she finds there seems to convince her that, for once, she shouldn’t push, shouldn’t ask questions. 

So she simply says, “I get off at 5.”

Max takes a deep breath and squeezes his eyes shut, nodding. “Okay, yeah. Thanks. That’s good. I should probably go get some sleep anyway.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, raising a hand as if to trace her thumb over the deep purple half- moons beneath his tired eyes. But she stops herself first, her hand hovering uselessly for a moment before falling to her side. “I’ll need to shower and change, so pick me up around 5:30?”

He nods, pressing his palms flat to the counter as he stands. Liz reaches over and rests one of hers on top, the touch warm and electric, comforting and energizing at the same time. It’s the way he’s always felt with her, like he has paradoxically both arrived safe at home and just embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. 

She smiles at him. “Whatever it is, it’s gonna be okay. I promise.”

He smiles back, keeping it small and contained; he’s always careful to be contained around her now. 

He knows how much pain he opens himself up to when he’s not. 

“I’ll see you at 5:30,” he says, the gun belt heavy around his hips as he walks to the door, setting his Stetson back on his head when he steps out into the merciless New Mexican sunshine.

* * *

When Michael finally lies down, he sleeps like the dead.

He shouldn’t; he’s finally accomplished something he has dreamed about ever since he was a lonely child trapped in the toxic foster system, literally light years from where he belonged. 

He’s free of all that now. He can leave. He can go _home._

So he should be excited, elated, _euphoric;_ he should be drinking and singing and dancing, shouting and laughing at the blue sky he’s been trapped beneath for so long. 

Instead, all he feels is a strange, contradictory cocktail of relief and absolute, utter dread.

So he closes his eyes and drifts off into sweet oblivion. 

And he dreams of Alex the whole time. 

* * *

Michael wakes as the sun is going to bed, large and orange and dipping beneath the western horizon. The first of the stars are out, winking at him, and he wishes he knew which one to wink back to. His calculations only showed him the _way_ to get home, not the actual destination. 

That remains, along with so many things about his life, a complete mystery. 

But he knows what he has to do now, running it over in his mind as he showers and shaves and puts on his least wrinkled shirt. He tries to imagine Alex’s reaction on the drive to The Wild Pony, the radio turned up loud enough to rattle the anxiety out of his bones. He doesn’t know how this is going to go. 

He just knows he has to try anyway. 

* * *

Alex is at the bar nursing a beer, the stool next to him blessedly empty. The neon signs paint him in garish shades of pink and green and blue; his hair’s a mess, and dark hollows haunt the skin under his eyes. He hasn’t been sleeping well. 

And Michael can guess why. 

“Hey,” he says softly, sliding onto the empty stool. 

Alex’s jaw flexes, his mouth twitching downward. “I thought you were taking some time away from me. That you needed space.” Alex looks down at their nearly-touching thighs. “Three inches isn’t a lot of space.”

“I know. I’m—” Michael stops himself, rolling his eyes. He’s terrible at apologies, at feelings, at all of it. 

But he can’t be terrible at this. Not this time. 

“—I’m sorry. I had a breakthrough on a project I’ve been working on literally forever, and I owed it to myself and to my family to see it through.” He leans a little closer, bumping Alex’s shoulder with his own. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you.”

Alex’s brow furrows and he’s quiet for a long time, staring at their muted reflections in the cloudy mirror behind the bar. 

“Next time, figure out how to say all that at the beginning,” he eventually mutters. “Before you just disappear on me for a week with nothing but one shitty text to not-really explain it.”

Michael has been absently peeling the label off Alex’s beer bottle but he stops, perking up at those words. “Next time?”

Alex shakes his head a little, chastising himself for saying too much. “No, you’re right. What would be the point of a next time? This… this _thing_ between us, it doesn’t work. It’s never worked. We should just let it go.”

Michael abandons the bottle entirely and leans toward him, studying the lines of Alex’s profile, trying to memorize the soft curve of his lips and calculate the exact angle of his nose. 

After all, this face is Michael’s favorite sight on Earth; if Alex is done with him, if Michael is leaving, the memory of it is the most precious thing he’ll carry with him.

“I don’t want to let anything go,” Michael says, husky and thick, desperate for Alex to hear the truth in his words. “And I _want_ there to be a next time. I want you to get pissed at me when I do stupid stuff — which, let’s be honest, is going to happen a _lot_. And I want us to shout and argue and have hot makeup sex, and I want us to… I want us to talk. _Really_ talk.”

Michael rests one finger lightly on the top of Alex’s wrist, so soft and small that no one else would notice the touch; Michael can feel the electric zing of it tingling all the way in his toes.

But then he notices where they are. The Wild Pony reeks of stale beer and old smoke; a drunken frat boy swears and laughs too loud from across the bar. Overhead, the sound system squeals as Maria plugs in the microphone for karaoke night. 

Michael shakes his head a little. “Just… maybe we should have that conversation somewhere a little more private than here.”

Alex tips his beer bottle against his lips; they glisten wetly when he answers. “Here’s as good as anywhere else, because really — why bother? This always ends the same way.” He runs his hand through his hair, then lets it fall into his lap, his shoulders slumping. “Let’s save ourselves some trouble, and just not start again.”

Michael grips the bar so hard the heavy wood cracks, and he’s not sure if it was from the strength in his hands or in his mind. A little of both, probably.

Alex just blinks, surprised. 

“Fine,” Michael grits out. “Don’t worry. I won’t be causing you any more _trouble._ ” 

He stands, pulling enough cash from his pocket to pay for Alex’s drink, and slaps it onto the broken bar top. Then he leans down a little and looks straight into Alex’s dark eyes. 

“In fact, you’ll never see me again.”


	3. Chapter 3

Max only gets a few fitful hours of rest before it’s time for him to shower and change and go back to the diner. He should be dragging from exhaustion, but his nerves are crackling with anticipation. 

It’s powerful enough to make the diner’s lights flicker as he walks up to the front door, his head down, his hands jammed in his pockets. His hair is still a little damp and a single water droplet rolls down his neck, soaking into his shirt collar. 

Liz is waiting for him just inside, wearing a dark red tank top and gray jeans, her leather jacket folded over her arm.

“You look great,” he murmurs, because it’s true, because he wants to say it every time he sees her.

And because he’s so tired of fighting not to. 

She hooks a finger in the cuff of his rolled-up sleeve, tracing it around the hard muscle and taut skin of his forearm.

“You, too,” she says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong — I’m definitely a fan of the uniform — but I think you might look even better out of it.”

She lets her hand fall away and steps to the door, leaving a semi-stunned Max blinking at her back. She hasn’t flirted like this since the week that she wore his handprint on her chest, and he’s not sure what brought it on. 

But he’s sure as hell not going to argue with it. 

“So, Cowboy,” she asks, tossing him a brilliant smile over her shoulder, “where are we going?”

* * *

They drive in comfortable silence, the wind whipping through the Jeep’s open windows and twisting Liz’s hair into long, tangled ropes. She wears a small, contented smile for most of the ride — but it disappears when she sees their destination.

“The old turquoise mines? Why did you bring me here?”

Max turns off the engine and rakes a hand through his wind-tousled hair. “You… you have a history of being honest with me here. I need you to be honest with me again.”

He climbs out of the Jeep and Liz follows, trudging up the hill behind him, the rocky sand crunching under their boots. He stops when they reach the spot where they met once before, for the sunrise they were supposed to kiss under.

The place where she broke his heart instead.

That pain is echoed on his face now as he takes a deep breath and says, “Liz—”

“Wait,” she says, reaching out to stop him, catching at his fingers and holding them loosely in her own. “Max, you should know—”

“No, please. Just let me say this, because otherwise I never will.” 

Liz nods but she keeps holding his hand, rubbing her thumb in tiny circles over his knuckles. 

Max can’t meet her gaze; instead, he stares at a small cactus over her left shoulder. “Michael figured out how we can get back to where we came from.”

Liz takes a step back and drops his hand, her arms wrapping protectively across her chest. Whatever she was expecting Max to say, that clearly wasn’t it.

“What?”

“Yeah. He’s been working on it for a long time — our whole lives, pretty much — and he knows how to do it now.” Max finally meets her gaze, biting the inside of his lower lip a little before continuing. “But it’s most likely a one-way trip, and we’d have to leave soon. _Tomorrow,_ actually.”

Liz’s lips part but she doesn’t make a sound; it’s as if her body is desperate to say something but her mind can’t provide the words.

Max just nods a little — to her, to himself, he isn’t sure — and continues. “I know you said that whatever connection I thought we had was just on my side, but before I left I just… I needed to make sure. And I’m not— I don’t want to pressure you, and I’m not making this be _your_ decision, or responsibility, but I’d be lying if I said you didn’t matter.” He swallows, hard. “Because you’re the thing that matters the most.”

Liz stares at him, her expression something that even Max, the world’s leading authority on Liz Ortecho, can’t quite decipher. It’s some complex brew of fear, guilt, desperation, and maybe — _maybe —_ something better and more powerful than all of those things.

He watches the battle play out across her features for a long minute, and then her dark eyes clear, a decision made.

Liz uncrosses her arms and reaches for his hands again, this time squeezing his fingers as if to ground herself. She draws a shaky breath.

“You were wrong, earlier,” she says. “This isn’t a place where I was honest with you.”

Max blinks, the crease between his brows deepening. “What?”

“I lied, that day that I told you my feelings had faded with the handprint. I had just found out about Rosa, and you were lying to me about the last time you saw her, and—”

“—and you were afraid,” Max realizes, crushed like a fruit rind under a boot. “You were afraid of _me.”_

_“_ Yes, but I know now I didn’t need to be,” Liz says quickly, trying to wipe that look off his face. “I know the truth, Max, and I understand why you kept it from me then. I’ve had a little time to think it over, and I'm not mad, and I’m _definitely_ not afraid.”

She closes the last bit of distance between them, Max’s hands sliding up her forearms to cup her elbows as she rests her fingers against the hard line of his waist. The setting sun is low, nearly hiding behind a ridge of rolling hills in the distance. The howling cry of a coyote echoes across the space; a few loose grains of sand catch in the wind and graze across their skin.

Neither of them blink.

“I lied, Max. I had feelings for you. I _have_ feelings for you. And they’re every bit as strong as the ones you shared with me.”

Max freezes for a moment, letting her words make their way from his ears to his heart. They’re thrumming through his bloodstream, burning in his muscles, lifting him like a champagne bubble fizzing in a glass.

His hands glide from her elbows to her shoulders, his thumbs grazing over her collarbones before skating across her shivering skin to her neck, his calloused palms curving over her jaw. His smile grows with every inch of her his fingertips cover; he’s beaming by the time they’re buried in the softness of her dark hair.

“That’s all I needed to know,” he murmurs, bending down to capture her lips.

The sunset blazes gold and bright and clear behind them, staining the inside of Max’s eyelids a burnt orange as Liz kisses him. It’s soft and wondrous and confessional, laying bare the depth of their feelings and all the history between them. Liz curls her fingers into the soft denim of his shirt and pulls him impossibly closer, and Max lets the warmth of her body chase the last of the chill of insecurity from from his skin.

He tugs her bottom lip between his and she sighs against his mouth; the unresolved tension that had been suspended between them for so long drains away, replaced by something better, something that holds him rooted to this spot, his large hands tangled in her long hair, the air around him charged with the sound of her breath and the scent of her skin.

Something that has been painfully tight and cold in his chest finally thaws and loosens, unspooling into a kind of peace and warmth that he’s never known. For this one glorious moment, everything is right in the world, and Max is exactly where he’s supposed to be.

Liz eventually pulls back the smallest bit, just enough to breathlessly ask, “So, just to be clear, does this mean you’re _not_ leaving the planet tomorrow?”

Max kisses his way across her jaw and down her neck, trying to memorize the tiny noise she makes when his stubble scrapes the tender skin over her pounding pulse; when he answers, his voice is low and burning, sonorous smoke. 

“I’m not going anywhere. Not ever."

* * *

Under the glare of his headlights, the new sign on Foster Ranch screams at him in reflective paint. Words like _warning,_ and _trespassing,_ and _prosecution_. 

And _treason_.

Michael doesn’t much care — the drive here did nothing to burn off his temper, even though he spent most of it with the speedometer’s needle hovering around ninety. He thinks about hopping the half-assed temporary gate the military put across the road and marching straight back to the crash site, but he hears a car coming up the dirt road behind him, its headlights bouncing over the rough terrain. 

He doesn’t turn to face it; he already knows who it is. That car has been following him from the second he left the bar.

“You’re trespassing on federal land,” Alex says, climbing out of the still-idling car, leaving the door hanging open behind him.

“Fine. Arrest me.” Michael finally turns to him, Alex’s silhouette black against the brightness of twin headlights. “Wouldn’t be the first time you had me in handcuffs.”

Alex walks close enough that Michael smells the faint hint of his aftershave in the breeze wafting across his cheek.

“Don’t,” Alex says. “Don’t hide behind jokes, and don’t walk away from me again.”

Michael watches him for a long time, the silence stretching thin and brittle between them. “Why do you care what I do?”

Alex brazenly steps even closer. “I care.” He hooks his fingers in the space between Michael’s buttons, tugging on his shirt. “I’ve always cared. I just—”

“—Can sometimes be a real dumbass?”

Alex laughs a little and looks away for a second, his brilliant smile flashing across his face. “Yeah.”

Michael stares at him in this pool of blinding light, at the way his short hair ruffles in the wind, at the strong grip his calloused hand keeps on his crutch, at the way Alex is staring back. 

At the way Alex has _always_ been staring back. 

“Do you love me?” Michael asks. He didn’t know he was going to say it until after he already had, but now it’s hanging out there, his heart a jackhammer against the inside of his ribs.

“What?”

“It’s a simple question. Do you love me, Alex?”

And Alex, at his core, is a soldier. He doesn’t blink and he doesn’t back down, no matter how terrified he may be. So he’s brave enough to finally be honest now.

“In my entire life, I’ve never loved anything else.”

Michael feels the words wash over him like a warm wave crashing on the shore. “Then open the gate,” he says.

“What? No. Let’s just go back to your trailer — whatever you want to do out here is pretty much guaranteed to be a terrible idea.”

Michael rolls his eyes. “Look, you’re a part of this whole thing, right? Whatever the military is up to? So this isn’t trespassing for you — it’s just, like, going back to the office after work. It’s fine; I’ve heard that people do that kind of thing all the time.”

Alex just stares at him, flat and impassive. 

“Please,” Michael finally says. “It’s important.”

And Alex is, as always, powerless to resist; he opens the gate and they ease through in Michael’s old truck, listening to rocks crunching under the tires and staring out at the dark desert, the landscape seeming to shake a little under the sweep of Michael’s headlights. He stops when he reaches his old spot. 

“We broke into a secret government facility because you were feeling homesick?” Alex asks.

“We’re here because this is where this… whatever it is that we have now, this is where it restarted. Where we found each other again.” Michael hops out of the truck and walks carefully around to Alex’s side; he has switched off the headlights and the desert is the darkest shade of gray, lit only by the faint sliver of moonlight.

They make their way over to the small deck that used to serve as his front porch; Michael gets a small, satisfied thrill at seeing that they haven’t torn it down yet.

He still has a presence here, in this place that’s always mattered to him most.

He sits on the deck’s edge with Alex close but not touching, not yet, and stares up at the stars. Michael will never grow tired of looking at them; he will always feel them calling to him a little. 

But right now, something else is calling louder. 

“I have an opportunity,” he starts, keeping his face tilted back and carefully _not_ looking at Alex. He’d never get through this if he did. “It would take me far from here, and I’m pretty sure it would be a permanent move.”

Michael pauses, feeling disconnected and so lost, as if he’s already drifting out in space but is desperately trying to somehow reach back to the Earth. He wraps his hands around the edge of the deck and squeezes; he curls his toes inside his boots. He’s here. He’s here right now.

He keeps going.

“I know the timing is not the greatest, but I’ve been trying to escape this place for as long as I can remember, wanting to leave it and all the painful memories behind. And now, unbelievably, I _can_.”

He blows out a breath and finally turns to face Alex, his eyes shining brighter than any of the stars overhead. “Unless you stop me.” 

Alex jerks back like he’s been slapped. “So that’s what this is? You brought me out here, after a week of silence, just to give me some kind of an ultimatum?” 

“No it’s not an _ultimatum—_ ” Michael huffs, tugging at his hair. “Shit, I’m fucking this up.” 

“Gee, Guerin, what a surprise,” Alex says, rolling his eyes, an affectionate smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. “Because you’re usually so smooth.” 

“Shut up.” Michael takes a deep breath and leans over, cupping Alex’s jaw with one hand and using it to pull their faces closer together. “What I’m trying to tell you is that you _matter_. I’ve finally got this opportunity that I’ve been waiting my whole life for, and now I’m not sure I even want it anymore, because of _you_. And I’d like some input from you on what I should do about that.”

Alex is quiet for a long time; there’s nothing in their ears but the wind and the soft sounds of small feet skittering across the sand around them — rabbits, maybe, or a desert fox. Life, in some form, carrying on as it always does, with no regard to the two men in their midst or of just how much hangs on the moment stretching between them. 

“Do you want to go?” Alex asks. His voice is small and a little broken, but the question is genuine. He just wants to know what Michael wants.

And for once, Michael is actually going to tell him.

“Honestly? I just want _you_. I want it to be you and me, for real and for good. But if that’s not an option—“

“That’s definitely an option.”

Michael blinks. “Yeah?”

Alex kisses him, his hands in Michael’s hair. “Yeah,” he whispers against his mouth; Michael can taste the word, feel the shape of it on his lips. 

Nothing’s ever been sweeter. 

So Michael pushes him back against the deck, gripping his hips tight enough that there will probably be faint bruises of his fingertips there tomorrow, and smiling against his mouth. 

They kiss until their lips turn numb and their cheeks are raw from one another’s stubble; until their skin is flushed and hands are tugging at buttons and zippers, scrambling for bare skin and heat and friction, for gasping breath and blinding sparks and feverish promises pressed into tender skin.   

And then Michael drives them home, Alex’s hand on his thigh the whole time. 

* * *

Max pulls up to Michael’s trailer at dawn, the sky a pale purple overhead, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other intertwined with Liz’s, her heavy rings biting into the skin between his fingers. He hasn’t worked out what to say to his brother yet, but Michael's a smart guy. When he sees Liz riding shotgun, he’s going to know Max’s answer. 

And it turns out that it doesn’t even go that far. Because, on a crappy folding chaise lounger sitting in the patch of sand outside Michael’s trailer, he sees his brother tangled up with Alex Manes. 

They’ve got a thin blanket tossed over them and there’s too much man for that small chair, the seat stretched and sagging close to the ground. But neither of them seem to care. Alex’s head is resting on Michael’s chest; Michael’s hand is curled protectively around the back of Alex’s neck.

He looks up at the crunch of Max’s tires and smiles, giving his brother a small wave. 

Max simply does the same. 

The gesture says enough; it says everything.

They may not have been born here, but they’ve found where they belong. This place. These _people_.

So Max kisses Liz again, just because he can, and turns the Jeep around. 

He’s finally going home. 


End file.
